Remote Sensing Techniques for Assessing Successional Changes on Former Military Areas

Remote sensing plays a crucial role in monitoring and evaluating transformations of vegetation cover. Of particular interest in this type of research are former military areas, which may bear traces of soil contamination and significant alterations from military activities for many years. The use of satellite and aerial data, including multispectral and hyperspectral imagery, as well as LiDAR data, allows for tracking the dynamics of vegetation development, from initial colonization stages to more advanced stages of forest succession. This approach was utilized in an analysis of a former military unit area spanning 63 hectares. The data sources included, among others, aerial photos from 1995, 2010, 2014, and 2016, along with a digital terrain model. 14 years after the military unit withdrew from the occupied area, advanced successional changes were observed, largely masking the traces of former military activity. However, noteworthy differences in the dynamics of plant growth allowed for the detection of traces of former military structures. Such observations may also potentially be useful in identifying areas modified by humans in the more distant past (a subject of interest in archaeology).